


Heartbeat

by Nightmare_Writer18



Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Confrontations, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, F/M, Fear of Death, Fucked Up, Gaslighting, Graphic Description of Corpses, Mental Instability, Nightmares, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Survival Horror, Suspension, The Author Regrets Nothing, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24906721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightmare_Writer18/pseuds/Nightmare_Writer18
Summary: Robert's heart doesn't tell him things he should know.
Relationships: Robert Downey Jr./Susan Downey
Kudos: 1





	Heartbeat

*Thump Thump*

*Thump Thump* 

*Thump Thump* 

A heartbeat tells you a lot. For Robert, it told him nothing. It said nothing. It only showed. His heart was too fast and beating loudly in his ears. He couldn't hear much above the sound of the blood pumping like a train running through him. It was too dark and too quiet where he was. Here, his voice could drift off for miles and no one would hear him. The only audience he had were the rats, spiders, and the rotting bodies. Little lumps of tiny carcasses were laid before him in piles and piles of gore. The air around him was thick and foul with death. He couldn't help but leaned over to his side and with a few shaky breaths, Robert vomited again more acidic sludge that burned his throat anew. He coughed up more and more vomit enough for some to run along a nearby pile of bodies, enveloping them in the disgusting, chunky mass. All the while, his heart still beat loudly in his ears. He wiped away the last of it and ran his hands through his hair soaked in dirty water, mud, and blood. The frightened man didn't even care for the mud and cuts on his own face nor the bruises and bite marks on his arms. He was tired, injured, and alone. The thing that chased him far from the city lights was still here searching and it was almost certain to find Robert again. Hadn't it done enough already? In fear of letting it find him, Robert said nothing. The only sounds he could make without being followed again where the sounds of his breathing, his crying, his wailing and the vomiting. It knew him by his words alone. It followed him by his words alone. For the past few days, Robert was in fear. He couldn't eat without wanting to throw it back up. He couldn't drink water without being reminded of blood. He couldn't sleep without having another nightmare. This was going on for far too long. He had been losing his strength and slowly losing his mind. With a few deep breaths and clinging on to a nearby rock, Robert picked himself up from the minature graveyard he sat on; there was nowhere else to sit. The shaking man stretched his tired legs and began to walk in the darkness. There were no lights around to guide him where he was. He had to follow the sound of the rats and his beating heart. The groung below was slick and slippery but Robert still managed to walk gracefully. Years of practice and pressure were on his side as he went further. Not too far behind him, he felt a cold draft touch his back which nearly caught him off guard. That was a bad sign. Robert stopped walking as chills dug in his skin like worms. He knew what it meant. 

It found him again. 

Tired eyes snapped open, legs grew stiff and the sound of his heart marched on. Every breath was quicker and quicker as Robert raised his hands over his ears. It was everywhere around him. Circling around him, a distant voice rung along the expansive path like a low hum. Deranged, unnatural chuckling rose as a sea. The voice was Robert's and not at the same time. The chuckling ascended further up the walls,growing louder and much more unstable. At the top, it was maddened cackling. Robert covered his ears desperately, unable to bear hearing his own voice used against him. It grew louder and louder as it watched Robert sink. With boiling anger replacing chilling fear, Robert lifted his hands off and screamed at the sound around him. 

"WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU? SHOW YOURSELF!" 

The cackling ignored him and continued to swirl in the dark. But it died in a descent from cackling to chuckles to nothing. He heaved another anxious breath as it stopped. He dared not sigh for the smell of rot possibly having a taste. His repressed breath choked in his shaken lungs. 

Beyond him, he heard metal scrapping against metal, whirring noises colliding with whirring noises, and a familiar blue light in the shape of a circle that now gleamed at Robert's sweaty chest. His heart once again the loudest; possibly protecting him from the mechanical sounds coming to him. Then he noticed two blue slits shining out at him in a cold stare. His cheeks and jaw felt numb and dead. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. The noises stopped abruptly. Whatever it was now stood several feet from Robert. In the blue light, Robert saw hints of golden metal and red armor glinting in intimidation.

The armor raised its own hands to it's helmet and slowly took it off. Robert's eyes shunk dead as the armor revealed a man's head inside. It looked almost like Robert. The other "Robert" looked younger with a goatee and brown hair the color of rust. It reminded Robert of the old iconic look of the Iron Man. 

"Miss me?" It jested. "I missed you. We all do." 

Robert quivered. "What..the..hell..." 

Tony smiled. "Yeah, what the hell are you doing trying to run from me?"

"You?!" Robert shrieked. "I am not running from you! You're not real!" 

Robert had no idea how scary his gaze was until Tony looked at him with burning eyes and a smile inviting evil. He came closer to Robert's height when he advanced towards him.

"Well, thanks to you I'll be real soon." 

"What do you mean?" 

They met almost face to face. 

"Once you're..replaced, I'll be real. Sorry that I gotta live. Only one of us can exist." 

Two red armored hands reached for Robert's shoulders. 

"N-No!" Robert squeaked. "Please! No!" 

Tony refused. 

"NOOOOOOO!" 

Robert screamed in excruciating pain as Tony Stark's gauntlets grabbed Robert's shoulders in a bone crushing squeeze. His shoulder blades broke out his back while his neck was gurgling with saliva and bloof. 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH"

As Robert screamed and screamed, his wife Susan was squeezing his shoulders while trying to shake hin awake from yet another nightmare. This was the third one this week. 

"Honey! HONEY!" She shrieked. "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" 

But he still screamed, terrified and high pitched. 

Susan had it and pinched Robert, waking him. 

"Honey! Are you awake this time!?" 

Her sobbing husband cried in relief. His heartbeat this time was normal even as he cried.

"Yeah, I'm awake. I dreamt about him." 

"Who?" 

"T-Tony...he came back for me." Robert heaved. "He was saying that I had to die and only he could survive. He KILLED me!" 

Susan leaned herself on him with her head on his arm. 

" I think you've been worried since you left and I think you've been watching too many horror movies. All those nasty thoughts have rolled up into your nightmares. " 

Susan placed a small kiss on Robert's hot cheek. 

"Now try to get some sleep. It's already two." 

"O-okay. I-I' ll try." 

Robert somehow felt her words were empty. His hearbeat raced as she kissed him. But he decided to shrug it off as her being exhausted from constantly waking him up each night from his nightmares. With a sense of uncertainty, Robert readjusted himself in the sheets and yawned. Before he closed his eyes, he caught the time of the clock. 

12 A.M. 

"Wait.." He said aloud. 

Then another kiss pecked Robert. A chill went up his spine when he felt facial hair with the set of lips that kissed him. It felt thick and cut sharply. With growing nervousnes, he slowly turned around to see Tony in a suit smiling widely. 

"Sweet Dreams, Robert~" 

Robert let out what must've been the loudest scream in years as his worst nightmare came true. He could feel underneath the covers the clicking and snapping of blood red armor tangling his feet like he was being chained to it. The same whirring noises from his nightmare came back to haunt him, traveling up his arms to coat him in his new prison. All Robert could do was scream again and again; the worst of it dawning on him like a bloody sunrise. When the last of the suit finally reached his face, it snapped over his face in one loud bang. 

Susan threw the blanket off of Robert in an instant as he shrieked in his sleep. Little did he know he was slowly suffocating underneath it. 

"ROBERT! WAKE UP!" 

Robert's eyes shot open at long last, letting fresh tears pour on the pillow beneath his head. The frightened man said nothing as his wife embraced him in her arms while he wheezed from his already sore throat. In Susan's embrace, she held him like . Never before had she seen him this scared out of his mind through all their years together. 

"Another nightmare?" She spoke quietly.

Slowly and surely, Robert's heart stopped beating in his ears; allowing him to hear Susan's soothing voice like she was a mother comforting a scared child. He nodded as he continued to rest himself in her embrace. If there was anything to be grateful for, it was for his beautiful wife and the children he still had. At least they were all alive and well. 

"Yes. Man, they're scaring me to all hell." 

Before he could begin to crack a joke, Susan noticed soemthing amiss. She raised a concern eyebrow at her weeping husband. 

"What's that glowing thing on your chest?" 

Robert snorted at that question. 

"Glowing? I don't see anything glowing-" 

And when he looked down again, Robert's eyes widened to saucers as he now saw an all too familiar sky blue ring in his chest glowing from his chest. His breathing became ragged again, recalling what happened in his dream: 

Tony Stark's first arc reactor glowing at Robert's chest just before he took off his helmet. 

What was even going on? 

There was no screaming this time.

No heartbeat in his ears. 

And no one to help him. 

There was only Susan, Robert, and the arc reactor that now sat comfortably in his chest. 


End file.
